Dr. James Arruda is one step closer to developing an unprecedented test to help identify people in the early stages of developing Alzheimer’s Disease.

The Warren native, URI and Brown University graduate, and professor of psychology at the University of West Florida recently spoke to the Times-Gazette regarding an update to the test he developed in partnership with California-based BIOPAC Systems, Inc., which went through its first clinical trial at the Warren Alpert Medical School at Brown University over the previous year.

The test, which utilizes an electroencephalography (EEG) machine to measure brain activity through electrodes placed on a patient’s head, administers two flashes of light into an area of the brain that processes visual stimuli, and records the amount of time it takes the brain to react to that stimulus.

Arruda theorized that a significant delay in reacting to the flashes would indicate the person is experiencing the specific type of mild cognitive impairment that leads to Alzheimer’s.

The study at Brown involved 25 subjects who were diagnosed as having the symptoms of mild cognitive impairment known to lead to Alzheimer’s, and 25 people in a control group who were healthy. Researchers put each participant through Arruda’s test, not knowing which group the subject belonged to.

At the end of data collection, they found that the test was able to accurately identify those experiencing Alzheimer’s specific mild cognitive impairment with 83% accuracy.

Arruda said that they will be starting a second clinical trial at the University of West Florida within the next month, which will include larger test groups, to show that the results could be replicated, or even improved.

“We’ll be modifying things a little bit to improve that sort of solution accuracy, but to this point, it’s pretty accurate,” Arruda said. “What we’re looking to do is broaden the demographics of our sample of patients and healthy individuals and we’re looking to validate our findings and maybe even improve the prediction accuracy of the measure, but it’s looking quite good.”

Arruda said that their partners at BIOPAC, based out of Santa Barbara, Calif., would also be employing the use of machine learning to optimize data collection and analysis to further improve the test’s efficacy.

FDA approval is the ultimate goal

While Arruda said it could take as much as a year to complete and compile the data for the second clinical trial, they won’t wait until the end of that trial to approach the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to seek their approval of the testing procedure.

He said he was hopeful that process won’t be as arduous as it could be, because the technology utilized (an EEG machine) is already a recognized, standard medical device that is FDA approved.

“What’s different is we have a novel methodology and measure that we’re using. We think the FDA approval process will likely be faster than what it would be if we had, for example, a new drug or some type of technology that has never been used on people,” he said. “It would really just be a factor of demonstrating its accuracy.”

When we first ran the story about Arruda’s test back in March of 2022, he said at the time he was optimistic about its potential, but the results of the clinical trial exceeded his expectations.

“I was optimistic and I was very positive about the theory and what I had done for the science behind this biomarker in the past. It was a good 10 years of work or more,” he said. “But it’s gone much better, I think, in terms of overall accuracy.”

If the test is able to replicate its results in the second trial, and if it received FDA approval, Arruda believes it could become a standard diagnostic tool used in doctor’s offices and hospitals throughout the country.

“I think what it would end up being is a very inexpensive, easily administered, and accessible sort of test that could be in a primary care office, it could be associated with a psychiatry department or practice, as well as a neurology department or practice,” he said. “It could probably be found in many places, used not just at the moment in terms of being able to assist in diagnosing…but it would also allow us to continue looking at it across time within any one individual to see if there’s change — like blood pressure or anything like that — just an overall measure of health, but when it comes to dementia of the Alzheimer’s type.”